Samsung Bets on Cheaper Robotic Gadget Assemblers

Samsung and the South Korean government are working together to build the next generation of production line robots, ones they hope can eventually clip together smartphones, cars, washing machines, cookers, irons, hairdryers and VR headsets much more efficiently than their human rivals in China.

According to the Korea Herald, Samsung is benefitting to the tune of nearly £10m of government grants to help fund the initiative, with the local government and the nation's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy hoping that the three-year trial will lead to cheaper production of industrial equipment.

The aim is also to lessen Korea's reliance on importing components clipped together on the cheap by overseas workers, with the ministry explaining: "Emphasis will be placed on developing precision speed reducers, motors, controllers and sensor encoders that are currently expensive and imported from abroad."

It won't just be Samsung that benefits from the automation push. The government would like it to share its findings with the other automated industries of South Korea, hoping that fleets of "mass-produced six-axis vertical articulated robots" could be ready to help the country's other tech and industrial producers to better compete with its cut-price overseas rivals by 2018. [Korea Herald via The Register]